


Clarification

by Creirdyddlydd



Series: Aftermath [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: But a happy ending because that's what I do, Episode Fix-It: s02e04 The Girl in the Fireplace, F/M, Light Angst, Post-Episode: s02e04 The Girl in the Fireplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 19:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Creirdyddlydd/pseuds/Creirdyddlydd
Summary: The Doctor needs to explain some things to Rose concerning his time in 18th century France.





	Clarification

**Author's Note:**

> I have another GitF fix-it sitting in my WIPs folder. It will still get posted (eventually – it is very slowly coming together since it’s way more angsty and that is NOT my forte) but I have two different wishes for how this was resolved. So, while I still like my other one and will post it when it’s done, I wanted to put this one together as well. Hope you enjoy!

Despite wanting to explain everything to Rose, the Doctor almost turned tail and fled when he entered the library and saw Rose sitting there, staring into the fire. He wasn’t proud of how he had acted or treated her today and deserved every bit of anger she threw his way. Even though he deserved it, he still didn’t want to have to deal with it. His guilt was bad enough without hearing how he may have hurt the woman who meant more to him than anyone or anything else he had encountered.

He was still trying to make his traitorous body turn when Rose glanced up at him. She gave him the smallest hint of a sad smile and his urge to flee was just barely beaten out by his urge to comfort. He reluctantly made his way over to the sofa and sat down close enough to let her know he was there for her, far enough away to give her space if she wanted it.

“How are you feeling?” Rose asked, just making the Doctor feel even worse. Here she was worrying about him, when he had been an absolute idiot.

“I’m fine,” he replied. “How are you holding up?”

Rose turned back to the fire, unwilling to voice how hurt she had been, how worthless he had made her feel, so she borrowed a page from his book. “I’m always all right.”

“Please don’t do that,” the Doctor requested. 

Rose gave a snort of disbelief. “Maybe you should listen to your own advice. It would make that statement less hypocritical.”

The Doctor winced. She was right, of course. Even though he had been all right, he didn’t have the best track record of being upfront with his feelings. But this quiet and obviously very hurt Rose was not someone he knew how to deal with. He almost would have preferred her shouting at him. It certainly would have allowed him to clarify some things with her without having to be the one to start the conversation.

Purple obscured his vision for a moment as Rose pulled a blanket from the back of the couch to wrap around her shoulders like a shield. The TARDIS had provided it for her soon after she started traveling with him, much to his previous self’s bafflement at his ship’s apparent fondness for the young woman. Now, she burrowed into the fabric and as she gazed at it, he saw her quickly blink away the moisture gathering in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “Really, Rose. I am so sorry for how I acted today. If I could do it all over again, there are so many things I would change.”

Rose nodded as she continued to stare sightlessly at the fire, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders and up slightly to try and hide the quivering of her bottom lip.

“Rose?”

At the quiet question, her struggle to maintain her composure failed and she lost the battle with her tears. She covered her face with her hands as the sobs she had refused to give into shook her shoulders. 

“Can I…?” the Doctor began tentatively as he opened his arms for her. 

There was nothing she would have wanted more than to cuddle into his chest and feel his wiry strength surround her, if today hadn’t happened. But it had, and the betrayal and abandonment left her with a desire to keep her distance.

She shifted slightly away from him, leaning more heavily against the arm of the couch as she tried to compose herself. “Just tell me why,” she croaked out. “Why did you treat me the way you did today? You barely even looked at me and then when you did it was to order me around, to order me to go somewhere else than where you were going. That’s not how we’ve always done things, Doctor. And I don’t understand what I did wrong.”

The Doctor sighed heavily, hearts cracking at the refused hug. She had every right to ask these questions, and he had to explain himself or risk her pulling back even more. He just wasn’t sure how to put his feelings into words. Conversations like this were not something at which he excelled. 

“Panic, mainly.”

Rose looked at him in confusion, eyes still wet with tears and drawing shuddering breaths occasionally as she tried to pull herself together.

The Doctor ran his hand through his hair and gave her a sheepish smile. “I’m not very good at this sort of thing, talking about emotions.”

Rose sniffled. “Can you at least _try_?” she implored as her voice cracked and it firmed up the Doctor’s resolve. He couldn’t stand to be the reason she was hurt, and he refused to be the reason she remained so.

“After meeting Sarah Jane again, it just reminded me how fleeting you humans are. Sure, it had been centuries for me since I had seen her, but it had only been a couple decades for her. Such a short amount of time, decades, and she was already middle-aged. 

“You and I are very close, Rose. Closer than I’ve ever been to anyone.” He swallowed, wondering if he should say what he was thinking, but Rose drew another shuddering breath and his decision was made. No more barriers. No more hurting the woman he loved. No more running away. “I practically told you when we were outside that chippy. We both know what I was going to say, but was too afraid to do so.” 

He chanced a glance at Rose, still teary-eyed but staring at him with cautious hope. “As we handled everything with the Krillitane, I realized how fleetingly I’d have you in my life. Seeing Sarah, older and hurt that I’d left her behind, it scared me that I would have to see one of those things happen with you. I could leave you behind where I would never have to watch you age and you could be alive to me forever, or I could keep you with me and witness it as you grow older, eventually losing you to an adventure you couldn’t keep up with or to time itself.” He drew his own shaky breath at the depressing thoughts. “I’m going to lose you – one way or another – and it terrifies me, Rose.”

“So, you treated me terribly because you’ll lose me one day?” It made no sense to her and the Doctor could sense it in the tone of her question.

“Because it terrifies me, I was trying to put distance between us. I thought, maybe if you left on your own it would be better. I could never leave you behind if you didn’t ask. But, you would be alive forever to me. That’s why I was so distant today. I was trying to build up all those barriers, but it just hurt both of us.”

“You do realize that’s stupid, right?”

The Doctor’s head snapped up at Rose’s accusation, but she continued before he could say anything. “Who’s to say you won’t blast through your last regenerations before I die? What if you end up in a situation where you can’t regenerate? I could very well be the one who ends up outliving you.”

The Doctor blinked at her, dumbfounded. She certainly had a point. He did have a tendency to regenerate more often than other Time Lords. But she wasn’t finished yet.

“Humans have to go through this too, you know. It’s not just because we’re different species. There are accidents, illnesses, violent crimes. Some people end up without their spouses or life partners very young. Look at my parents. Mum was only 20 when Dad died. She’s been sad and lonely at times, and we saw how they argued, but she did love him, and she always said she was thankful for the time they did have. And even if they both lived a long life, at some point one will pass on before the other. That’s just life, Doctor.”

The Doctor hung his head. She made it sound so simple. “In a way, you’re right. But for humans, it’s a few years or decades at most. I have centuries, maybe even millennia left. Can you imagine living that long without the person you love? I’m truly a coward when it comes to this, Rose.”

Rose succumbed to another sob and then cleared her throat. “A-and what about Reinette? You seemed particularly interested in her.” She was able to get the words out, but the Doctor could see how his answer had the potential to absolutely crush her. Luckily, the honest answer wasn’t as heartbreaking as she feared.

He shook his head with a small smile. “Not in the way you’re thinking. She was a famous historical figure. You may have noticed, I tend to get a little excited when meeting them.”

Rose couldn’t help the small smile as her memory tumbled over other historical figures they had met, Charles Dickens; Yen-Ren, the most famous painter of the Shenfor galaxy; Heaoh, a brilliant healer on Toif; the Empress of Gil. 

The last one had been particularly amusing. Apparently, the empress had eradicated illiteracy on her planet and the Doctor had been aiming for later in her life, wanting to visit the annual ball and ask her about her achievements. However, as often was the case with the Doctor, they had landed during one of the annual balls in her childhood and Rose’s leather-clad Doctor had to spin around the ballroom with an enamored little princess perched on his feet.

The memory of the tiny princess was precious and cute. Their experiences with this princess had broken her heart. “She loved you,” she whispered.

The Doctor cringed. He definitely had been selfish in the way he interacted with Reinette and it was time to come clean. “She didn’t love me, not really. She barely even knew me. A few minutes here and there throughout her life is not enough to love someone.”

Rose frowned. “You shouldn’t discount someone’s feelings like that.”

“I’m not discounting them, really. She may have loved the _thought_ of me, some fictional version she had pieced together in her mind. But whatever she had conjured up, wasn’t really me. We didn’t spend enough time together for that.”

Rose opened her mouth to speak, but the Doctor continued. If he was going to come clean, he needed to do it completely while he had the courage, so he gave her a run-down of the day from his perspective, all of his interactions with the courtesan. “I did save her when she was a child from one of those clockwork droids. That was the start of it. How could a child see anything else but a hero when someone saves them? When I went back through, it was to make sure she was okay. I was expecting her to still be a child, but those windows weren’t stable. She was a young woman and before I really knew what was happening, she was kissing me.”

Rose’s eyes filled again and the Doctor rushed to reassure her. “It wasn’t a full-on snog or anything. It was over as quickly as it began, and I was just too shocked that it was happening to push her away.” 

Rose drew another deep breath and nodded, wanting to hear the rest, so the Doctor continued. “When we rushed through the mirror after seeing her with the king, I stayed behind to try to find out what the droids were after. I already knew they were scanning her brain and the best method of finding what they were looking for…was to use telepathy.” 

Rose flinched slightly at his hesitant confession. He had been sure to lecture her on the rules and guidelines for using telepathy before he had to use it with her a few times, twice to shield her from others and to help her heal after Cassandra. She had mentioned it seemed intimate and he agreed with her. And now he had just admitted to using it with someone else. 

“It was supposed to be just a surface examination, much less contact than when I’ve used it with you. With you, I’ve had to bring you behind my own shields or move through your mind soothing damage that had been done. With her, it was just a quick superficial scan to find where the droids had been centering their searches.” The Doctor searched for an appropriate metaphor to help her understand what it was supposed to be. His eyes lit up and he snapped as he found the human equivalent. “It was supposed to be a bit like when you visit a gynecologist. They’re examining an area that can be used for pleasure, but it’s very professional and detached. Nothing to get excited over.”

Rose nodded for him to continue. It made sense, so she tried to keep the jealousy from her mind.

“But, I’ve never been a very strong telepath and my shields have become even more flimsy since the end of the war. Apparently, Reinette has some natural ability. She found the path to my mind and snuck a peek. I didn’t want her there and as soon as I realized what was happening, I broke the connection.”

Rose’s hurt gaze had turned to concern. “Are you all right? You told me it was the first rule of telepathy. You don’t enter another’s mind without permission.”

“You don’t,” the Doctor agreed. “But I didn’t have time to give her the basics like I had with you. Plus, like I said, it was supposed to be quick and not even close to what we’ve shared.” The Doctor took the hand that was resting on top of her blanket in his own, sighing in relief that she didn’t pull away. 

“You have natural ability, too. That’s why I made sure to give you that talk before we used it. It’s so rare for a human to have telepathic abilities that I wasn’t expecting it. It wasn’t anything like the warmth I’ve felt when we’ve connected.”

Rose gave him just a hint of a smile and he feared it may be a while before he saw her bright, true smile again. “You never answered my question. Are you all right?”

The Doctor sighed as Rose’s thumb brushed over his knuckles. “A bit of a headache, but I’ll be okay. A good night’s sleep should do the trick. My mind is very adept at rebuilding itself. Once my shields are back in place I should be fine. Not sure how long it will be for the slightly dirty, violated feeling to subside, but that’s more psychological, so not as easy to heal.”

Rose squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Doctor. If I can help, please let me know.”

“Thank you, Rose.” Feeling brave, he lifted her hand to place a slight kiss to her knuckles. 

A blushing Rose blinked a few times before finding her voice again. “What happened after that?”

“I wanted to run,” he sighed. “To get as far away from her as possible after what she pulled, even though I knew I couldn’t really blame her. She just didn’t know. Even though all she had gotten was my name was The Doctor and a glimpse of my childhood, she felt like we were closer somehow, like what she had just done gave her the right to demand more of me. 

“She wanted me to go to the ball with her, to dance and make King Louis jealous. I was too busy trying to assess the damage to my mind to make sense of what she was saying and pull away. We were almost to the ballroom when the TARDIS sent a wave of panic at me. I finally got my wits about me and raced back only to find you and Mickey strapped to tables.”

“But you were…,” she trailed off and the Doctor just raised one eyebrow at her. “Oh,” the proverbial penny had dropped. “You can’t get drunk on human alcohol.”

“Nope. Just like to make an entrance,” he sniffed. “Plus, if the droids thought I was an intoxicated idiot, they wouldn’t be on guard as much while I stumbled over to them with the anti-oil.”

Rose couldn’t help the amused smile quirking her lips. The humor quickly fled as she thought about the next bit. “What about your decision to abandon us?”

A forceful breath left the Doctor’s lungs as he thought. “That wasn’t as much a decision as something I needed to do. You know I can sense time lines.” He paused to see Rose nod. “And I’ve told you about fixed points.” Rose nodded again. “Right. If I’m in a fixed point and it’s about to change, it physically hurts. It’s a pain in my entire body, something that needs to be set right or the results could be catastrophic. Her actions helped to define an entire country’s history. I needed to save her. But with the pain, the violation to my mind and the fact that the droids were already there, I had to do something and I couldn’t think of a better option at the moment. With us already part of events, watching the scene at Versailles, I couldn’t take a few moments to think. I just had to act.”

The Doctor ducked to catch her downcast eyes. “I didn’t willingly leave you, Rose. I could have telepathically contacted one of my previous selves to come collect me and bring me back. It would have taken a while, for me at any rate, one mediocre telepath calling out to another, but I would have made it. I would have asked to go back just seconds after leaving. I didn’t mean to desert you.”

Rose nodded slightly. “How long were you there?”

“One hour, six minutes and 24 seconds.” He grinned slightly at her. “The whole time I was there, I held a wine glass that someone had given me and stared out of a window, making plans for which one of my selves I should contact.”

“You didn’t…dance with her?”

The Doctor frowned at Rose. Hadn’t she been listening? He scolded himself as soon as the thought formed. She had been through a lot today and that was all his fault. “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t interested in her romantically, Rose.”

“But you were devastated when you came back and she was gone.”

The Doctor shook his head at her slightly. “It’s jarring to watch someone go from childhood to death in the span of one day. I knew her for a few hours, Rose. Not nearly long enough to love someone.”

“You invited her on a trip.”

“A very bad idea on my part. In all the euphoria of getting home to you, I just wanted to show her our life isn’t all bad. But I realize she would have gotten the wrong message, you would have gotten the wrong message and I would have just put a famous historical figure right back in danger after saving her.” The Doctor winced. “Not one of my greatest moments.”

Rose was going to put all her grievances from the day out there. She had come this far, may as well finish it. “Both of you managed to make me feel inferior. She did it by speaking down to me when I went to tell her you would save her. And you were so sure to mention how brilliant she was while barely looking at me. Not to mention, the fact that you kept splitting us up. Usually in ways that meant you were alone with her.”

“It was all down to my stupid idea to put barriers up between us. But, I am so very sorry that I made you feel that way, Rose. You’re one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met.”

Rose yanked her hand from his and pulled her blanket up again. “Don’t patronize me, Doctor.”

“No, no, no. Let me finish. There are different ways to be brilliant and you are brilliant in a way that you just have to be born with. You’re amazing with people, Rose. You’re able to get them to open up, to empathize with them, to understand them in a way that I’ve never seen anyone else do. You can read people and usually connect the dots before I do on our adventures. Sure, she had an in-depth knowledge of many subjects. But there was no job or responsibilities for her. She filled all of her time with study. The way in which she was brilliant you could become with a little study, the way in which you are brilliant is an innate ability that you either have or don’t have. Sure, you may not know much about gardening, but Reinette never ended a thousand-year civil war on Taorajando, becoming their most revered goddess.” He smiled at Rose’s embarrassed, but pleased blush. “Reinette doesn’t know what a Raxicoricofallapatorian is.”

Rose gave a little snort. “I wish I _didn’t_ know what a Raxicoricofallapatorian is.”

Rose bit her lip as she looked over at him, still hurt, but feeling a little better. The Doctor opened his arms again with a nervous expression. “Can I have a hug?” He didn’t think he could take it if she refused again.

Rose sighed and moved to hug the Doctor. She burrowed into his chest and felt a little more of the day’s tension ease from her shoulders and her heart. 

“Feel better?” the Doctor whispered against her hair.

“Getting there,” she replied with a sigh. “What about you?” she pulled one arm back to gesture slightly at her temple and then replaced it around his waist.

“It’ll take some time, but I’m getting there, too.” He smiled down at her and felt relief when she smiled back at him. “I can never apologize enough for how I acted today, Rose. I should have pulled you through every single time window with me. My genius always shines a little brighter with you there.”

Rose giggled slightly at him. “The only bloke I know who can apologize while complimenting himself in the process.”

“Welll…,” the Doctor tightened his arms around her. “We all have our talents and I am very impressive.”

He grinned down at Rose and felt something within him shift. He had bulldozed a few barriers tonight and wanted to continue to do so. What he wanted most was to press his lips to hers, to completely erase her unease and show her that she was the most important woman in the universe. But as he bent down to do just that, Rose’s eyes widened and she jolted back from him. 

“Rose?”

She drew a deep breath and shook her head. “I can’t.”

The Doctor felt like a rock lodged in his stomach and his throat tightened. Maybe he had been misreading things. Or maybe he had just bolloxed it all up too badly with her. “Right.”

Rose shot out her hands as if to stop him. “No, wait. Let me explain.” She blew out a forceful breath and twisted her hands together. “I have wanted you to kiss me since practically the day we met.”

A flummoxed Doctor couldn’t resist interrupting. “That long?!”

“A dead sexy bloke who seemed a little dangerous had just saved my life. Yeah, that long,” she answered with a cheeky grin. Her smile faded and she continued. “Today hurt, Doctor. A lot. Then I learned she kissed you...,” she trailed off with a sigh and continued. 

“Not today. I don’t want you doing this because your emotions are high after almost losing the TARDIS and being stuck in France. I don’t want you doing this just because you think it would make me feel better. And I definitely don’t want our first kiss, when it’s just us, to be when I’ve been so hurt. I want it to be a completely happy time, Doctor. I want us to kiss each other just because we want to and we can and no one is hurting.”

The Doctor nodded and ran a hand through his hair. “Fair enough.” He tugged his ear slightly. “Can we continue our cuddle?”

Rose moved back into his embrace, shifting so she was comfortable and adjusting the blanket around her. “Thank you,” she murmured quietly.

“For what?” The Doctor settled his cheek atop her head and matched her volume.

“For being honest with me about what happened and for not pushing me away any more.”

The Doctor smiled slightly. “I’ll still mess up. Relationships aren’t something I really know how to do.”

Rose shook her head slightly, which really meant she just nuzzled into his chest with the way she was positioned. “All you have to do is not flirt with other people, Doctor. I can forgive most things and I’ve lived with you long enough to be used to a lot of your habits. Arguments will happen, that’s inevitable. Our relationship doesn’t even have to change all that much, though I will expect a little more affection. The only thing that could make me end things with you is if you share the affection and flirting that is supposed to be mine, with someone else. I don’t tolerate infidelity, Doctor.”

She could feel the Doctor still slightly and wondered if she’d gone too far. “Rose, I think I should clarify something with you.”

Her heart leapt into an uncomfortable gallop, which the Doctor must have felt because he immediately tightened his hold on her and brushed a kiss to her forehead. “I…um…the reason I don’t,” he stopped and took a breath. “Do you remember when I said I had ‘danced’ during the Blitz?”

Rose couldn’t help her grin. “Bit difficult to forget.”

“Wellll…I have, but not in the way you’re thinking and quite by accident.” He realized he was taking a rather roundabout route to tell her what he really wanted to say, but his nerves wouldn’t let him just blurt it out.

Rose stilled, looked up at him and blinked. “You shagged someone by accident?”

“Shagged is a term that only applies to humans. And really, I think that’s a story for another day.” He blushed as he thought about his misadventures when he misunderstood the culture and ended up accidentally engaging in that planet’s definition of sexual activity.

Rose smirked at him. “Oh, we’re coming back to that. Definitely.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes at her but couldn’t help his affectionate grin. “What I’m trying to get at is Time Lords were rather asexual by nature. Too stuffy and proper to do any of that, to engage in the base physical urges. We had looms to procreate and couples who did marry generally derived enjoyment from telepathic connections. While I deviate from a great deal of Time Lord behaviors, I am still influenced a bit by my upbringing.”

Rose was looking at him in confusion and then shock passed over her features before she schooled it back into neutrality. She would take whatever the Doctor was comfortable with. She loved him too much to run just because he didn’t want a physical relationship, but it would be difficult since just a glance from him could make her heart thump and her core clench. “Are you saying you’re not interested in a physical relationship?”

“Actually, what I’m saying is I’ve only ever felt those urges with you.” He watched a blush spread across her cheeks and knew it was mirrored on his own. “While I’ve never felt attraction to others, I find myself feeling it with you. There was this feeling of real connection when I met you and then as we grew closer, closer than I’ve ever been with anyone else, I started to feel physically attracted to you.”

“When did that start?” she asked with her tongue poking through her teeth.

“Cardiff, the first time. Only one week after meeting you and I was feeling things I’d never felt before.” He sighed. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel this again, Rose. I’ve always said I was asexual because I’d never felt attraction like that, but you’ve made me think maybe that’s not quite true.” He smiled at her shyly. “Another reason not to worry about me flirting with others. I never really mean anything by it. I would never follow through with it.”

“So, with Reinette?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

Rose frowned at him even as his admission made her heart sing. “Still, no flirting, Doctor.” She grinned saucily at him. “Not if you want to explore these physical urges I make you feel.”

He laughed and hugged her tighter. As soon as she gave the okay, he was going to snog her until she made him stop. He was going to love her in every way he could think of, physically and telepathically, if she would let him. But he could be patient. She had been patient with him and had even forgiven his complete fuck-up of the day. He could give her all the time she needed.


End file.
